Acceptance

Lately I have been playing Fifa with my housemates a lot and it got me thinking. So we stay together, the four of us, in a typical bachelor pad. Everyone enjoys the occasional video game of football. Recently, the Fifa games have been brutal. At first, we would just play a game, one was really bad and usually got walloped, hard! And life went on. Lately, that suckish player gained some skill and has been improving in his game, so much that he scored his first goal. Yes, he was that bad that he could not score at first. Soon after scoring his first goal, he got his first win. This is when the brutality started. Nobody wants to lose to him. NOBODY! So they pull out all the stops to beat him. I, for one, score him with ease but the other 2 have a hard time doing so. This other one, let’s call him Yellow, would have a hard time beating the ‘so called weak one’, let’s call that one Green. Tonight, they played a match which Green eventually won. For him to get this win, Yellow would pause the game every time he thought Green was scoring, he would even disrupt the peace through name calling just to bring down the other. He pulled out all the stops to prevent his humiliation. When one was beaten, we usually had this ritual where we all laughed at the other one and took humiliating pictures of the occasion as a memo. In this case though, Yellow was just a sore loser. He switched off the console, walked away into his room, locked his room and just left everyone. He would not accept this loss, or any lose for that matter. He always did this each time he lost. Never would he finish a game properly if he was losing. This got me thinking…

How many things in our lives do we usually hate to accept when we obviously see that they are happening? Human beings have this ability, this habit of refusing the obvious. When we are in relationships and everything starts going sour, we tend to block out the fact that the whole situation is going down the drain and convince ourselves that it will all be okay. When we are told bad news or facing a bad situation we tend to block it out and refuse to accept. When will we ever accept something without being too sentimental about it and not letting our sentiments cloud our judgement? The first step to having a healthy life is to start by acknowledging and accepting the things we cannot change. This sounds similar to a prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He said,

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.”

Accepting the things you cannot change would allow you to move on much better, focus on the better things in life and focusing on bettering yourself as a human being. Take your time, forgive those who wronged you, accept defeat and live a happy life.